#perhaps something specifically addressing the UK media

[bauliya]

hewwo guys im writing an essay on using intersectionality to understand TERFism/analysing the anti-trans moral panic through kimberle crenshaw's framework so if u have any recs they'd be really appreciated thank u

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Meghan's Prostitution Resurfaces amid her Links to Prince Andrew

I think everyone on tumblr knows that when Dorito told Joshua Silverstein that Meghan was "traveling the world as a MODEL" (5'2 ordinary looks and political ambitions) she was doing more to earn money than take photos in tacky clothes.

I'm a big fan of TRGs work. In a video, she addressed the recent article that connects the transactional relationships that put Meghan Markle into Harry's orbit.

What surprised me most was the large number of comments from people who really had no idea that Meghan's past most likely put her in Jeffrey Epstein's orbit. Even Lady C has spoken about rumors that Meghan allegedly met Prince Andrew before she actually met Harry. Lady C also said she knows things about Meghan that are encased in cement: "the press knows, everyone knows."

While I'm glad TRG finally told her audience that both Harry and Meghan were in Istanbul Turkey in April 2015 she did get several other details wrong. It's important to connect the dots but the people in her comments section aren't doing their own research like what we do here on Tumblr which is the reason I get concerned when misinformation is spead on YouTube etc because it makes people question the validity of the entire thesis.

Here are my notes to TRG:

1-According to Bower, Fitzpatrick---- MM met via golfer Rory McIlroy. MM pursued Rory like everyone else, via her social media & she used the ice bucket challenge to meet him. He sent her the challenge and she told him to come over and do it himself. Rory was staying at John Fitzpatrick's nyc hotel. Rory helps John with good PR for Ireland.

I think you actually spoke about this mtg bc I recall you speaking about the notorious late night parties at Chiprioni's. Perhaps you forgot. Use the Revenge index to read the full story. Mm pursued Rory. Fitzpatrick seems to tag along with Rory for the celebrity social scene. Back then, Mm was desperately searching for an athlete (or prince) boyfriend bc Chef Cory wasn't good enough to be the future father of her kids (clearly she didn't consider harry's low IQ). Whatever she has been trained to do in bed, it ruined Rory's golf game and yet he still went back for more the next day. Mm also documented their mtg on her social media & featured Rory on the blog something she wouldn't do for cory.

2-Fitzpatrick & Sarah Rafferty are also close. He may have known Rafferty b4 markle. He works to unite Irish celebrities & to back ($) globalists like the Clintons on behalf of Ireland. I consider him to be a lobbyist. He's rumored to be gay but perhaps like mm he's fluid. He has met Charles on multiple occasions in his "lobbyist" role and he knew charles b4 he met mm. He invited her to meet Obama at the WH. Allegedly they flew or met up with her buddy Ron Burkle (Soho House owner) whose plane she frequented as did Bill Clinton. BTW-When Clinton staffers were asked why they allowed Clinton to hang out with slimy Ron Burkle they said, "let us know when you figure it out." Check the daily mail for a pending sexual assault law suit against bill clinton filed by 3 or 4 females who were teenagers when bill was flying around with burkle on air*uck1. The law suit resurfaced about 3 or 4 years ago. Of course our American media didn't cover it. The Daily Mail helped the girls reach out to Burkle & Clinton for hush money.

3-Fitzpatrick is responsible for hillary obtaining that ridiculous "chancellor" position in Ireland after she lost the 2016 election & after the UK approved Brexit.

4-mm wasn't the 1st girl "sent" to date harry. Several years ago, the brf was warned that their participation was expected & if not, "they" could put someone in their inner circle.

Enter the Obamas. They invited Harry to Chicago & filled up his head with woke nonsense. He decided he wanted to find his own "michelle obama." He specifically was interested in a left wing, black woman.

A very brown skin black woman (who lived in Texas) was asked to date harry. We know this bc after mm popped up, the very sweet, pretty young woman revealed that she had been asked to date harry but she turned (the backers) them down. She said, "I couldn't do THAT to harry. This explains Barack Obama's hot mic-ish convo w/harry during an invictus basketball game. Instead of watching the game, Obama had made a special trip to Toronto to check-in with harry on how things were going w/mm.

This also explains the reason mm thought she could gatecrash Michelle's London book event to meet her. Mm really thinks of herself as that vip who infiltrated the brf on behalf of the world's globalists. She feels like they owe her and she's one of them. She thinks she became a first lady who deserves billions of dollars bc she slept w/harry. She's delusional.

Remember when she cleared the stands at Wimbledon? Watch the video and you'll see her friend Lindsay Roth Jordan telling her "smile. look happy." The other friend said "put your hat on." That hat is a message, a symbol to her clients & in this case those backers. Shortly after the Wimbledon fiasco Hillary Clinton went on the record to say the press was racist. You can watch both of Hillary's statements- one recorded w/Chelsea & the other for a uk radio program.

5-Allegedly mm was involved with Jean Luc Brunel's MC2 model management which was financed by JEpstein. There is an infamous photo of Mm with Epstein's Rachel "Ray" Chandler.

6-we know mm was traveling the world "modeling" bc Dorito told Joshua Silverstein those exact words. We've seen many of the hideous photographs & a few videos🤢 Remember she also knows Harvey Weinstein who labeled her hopeless as an actress but told her she should use her long legs.😂

7-there is evidence to indicate that she attended NXIVM training---the clintons (& soros) used nxivm to blackmail the majority of new york state. It's possible that mm even recruited for nxivm nyc or toronto. NXIVM was also THRIVING on Vancouver island.

Fun fact: Trump had no idea that mm had made ugly comments about him during the campaign. So why did he go on the record and say I'm not a fan of hers & Harry's gonna need a lot of luck? He said that BEFORE he was told about the things she said during the campaign.

I believe he had classified info on her. He probably also knew about her nyc reputation w/business men like those at cantor fitzgerald. And we all know she allegedly slept with Trump's former treasury secretary who attended the UK state dinner (steve Mnuchin)

8-we also know that mm is desperate for security. Harry's job was to clean up her past which included IPP status. She wants to wear blood diamonds, but she wants to be protected from the men who gave them to her. She's afraid of her past. The rumors are that Tyler Perry is her next mark. The irony is that she would have invited him to the wedding had he been white. But back then, she was too good for Madea. Now she's desperate. Perhaps she will seduce Tyler Perry into a marriage for his billions, his island & for SECURITY. He's revealed himself as a thirsty liar who can be bought. (btw-he's trying to purchase BET).

No one else cares about her. She & noprah had no idea how those manipulated headlines and the lies out of their mouths would cause even the LA paparazzi to despise her. She went from being a wanna be covergirl whose covers didn't sell magazines to a lying "royal" that the paparazzi don't want to photograph.

9-no one seems to know what issue the Queen was told (or Charles) "they" (the world's globalists) or rather threatened over. I think it was Brexit but it also could have been global warming??? But Hillary and Obama were so bold in their UK appearances & threats over Brexit that I tend to think they wanted QE to persuade the people to go against it. Good for her letting the people decide. Too bad Charles seems to be so wishy washy.

Allegedly Mm went to Tony Blair and requested his help. She wants an ambassadorship or something similar. Why did she think Tony Blair would help her??? IMO Tony might have been the person who shared the "your participation is expected" message, meaning he's in on this mess & most likely some UK judges & church bishops as well.

10-Harry wasn't allowed to marry Meghan because of her "proximity" to Prince Andrew. It was the RACE card. Meghan did however play the Prince Andrew card during MEGXIT negotiations and we've watch her deranged squad bring up Andrew everytime there is a criticism about Meghan.

Even now, Meghan allegedly demanded HRH for the invisibles because Beatrice & Eugenie still use their dad's HRH. I've always thought that the Sussex attorneys have been using Prince Andrew as their benchmark in negotiations with the BRF.

Edit: it is important to note that mm made anti-brexit posts on her ig the same week she "officially" persuaded violet to become their public matchmaker. She also fed the writers of the lifetime movie script a racist narrative that stemmed from brexit. I dont think any of this was a coincidence.

The world is upside down. Maranatha!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Wilfred Reilly

Published: May 18, 2023

There has been a good deal of talk in the US over the past few weeks about ‘Hispanic white supremacy’. The idea itself sounds darkly funny, but its widespread prominence says something serious about the mainstream media’s embrace of race essentialism.

The recent prompt for all this talk was the mass shooting at an upscale outlet mall in Allen, Texas, on 6 May. Nine people were killed, including the perpetrator, and another seven were badly injured. Almost immediately, the national media looked beyond the tragic reality of the murders themselves to focus on right-wing activism and, more specifically, on white supremacy.

The Washington Post’s first social-media post addressing the shooting read: ‘The gunman who opened fire on an outlet mall in a Dallas suburb… was a man in his early 30s who may have had white-supremacist or neo-Nazi beliefs.’ Meanwhile, Salon seems to have simply assumed that the shooter was a white supremacist, asking in a headline: ‘When a mass shooter is a white supremacist. Does it even matter?’ The UK-based Independent similarly honed in on a potential white-supremacist motive, running a long piece on the gunman’s ‘white-supremacist social-media footprint’.

One important detail was rarely mentioned, however – namely, that the Allen mall shooter, Mauricio Martinez Garcia, was actually Hispanic.

Yes, it is true that Garcia displayed a fondness for elements of the radical right. He was active on 4chan-style websites, like the obscure Russian platform ok.ru, where he posted photographs of swastika tattoos, ‘praise for Adolf Hitler’, a range of incel gibberish, and – perhaps unsurprisingly – ‘complaints about the state of his mental health’.

However, Garcia does not seem to have dreamed of an all-white society (which he would presumably be excluded from). His rambling writings suggest that he actually believed Latin Americans to be the planet’s superior race. Nevertheless, several major publications tried to square the circle by running headlines like the Nation’s unforgettable ‘White supremacists don’t have to be white’.

The media line that this pro-Latino Hispanic lunatic was actually a white supremacist would simply be a curiosity if this were an isolated example. But it isn’t. In fact, a growing number of right-wing ethnic minorities are now finding themselves accused of believing in ‘white supremacy’. Take, for example, the attacks against Larry Elder, the popular black conservative radio personality. During Elder’s Californian gubernatorial campaign in 2021, the LA Times referred to him as ‘the black face of white supremacy’.

What do these accusations mean in practice? At the root of ideas like black or Hispanic white supremacy is an essentialist view of race. Many wokes and even liberals now believe that different races are immutably linked to specific cultural traits. Within this rather insidious framing, racism and conservatism are said to be ‘white’ traits, and so black racists or even just black conservatives must therefore be ‘white’, too.

This is no exaggeration. In 2020, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture published a list of what some prominent staffers considered to be distinctive ‘white’ traits. Among them were a stable ‘family structure’, ‘objective, rational… thinking’, the belief that ‘hard work is the key to success’ and showing up on time for work.

Similarly, more than a few American liberals appear to believe that academic performance is a proxy for whiteness. A past column of mine for spiked dealt with a novel technique devised by at least one major US school district. To explain the high academic performance of ‘oppressed’ Asian and West African students, the school district simply labelled these overachieving ethnic-minority students as ‘white’.

This sort of essentialism is remarkably racist. It implies, for example, that being hard-working, or being objective and rational, are natural predispositions for whites, but not for blacks. Such claims are nonsensical and dangerous. Believing that certain characteristics or traits automatically attach to members of any racial group is the very definition of racism. Some members of minority groups can be radicalised to the political right, but the fact that they are right-leaning criminals or terrorists does not make them white. Acts of violence committed by black or Hispanic people that have a racial component – the Waukesha Christmas parade attack comes to mind – must be understood for what they are. They should not be ignored or shoehorned into a box that does not fit them.

More broadly, it is important to recall that people do not behave as they do because of their race. Mass shooters kill people mostly because they, specifically, are disturbed. And immigrant kids do well in school not because they are acting ‘white’, but because they tend to study hard. When analysing people at either of these extremes or in between, it’s generally a good idea to put aside the labels and focus on that smallest of minorities – the individual. Otherwise, we risk reviving a very ugly and divisive form of racial thinking.

==

“Another aspect of the construction of whiteness is the way certain groups have moved into or out of that race. For example, early in our history Irish, Jews, and Italians were considered nonwhite—that is, on a par with African Americans. Over time, they earned the prerogatives and social standing of whites by a process that included joining labor unions, swearing fealty to the Democratic Party, and acquiring wealth, sometimes by illegal or underground means. Whiteness, it turns out, is not only valuable; it is shifting and malleable.”

-- Delgado/Stefancic, "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (Third Edition)"

“Reflecting on the social and economic advantages of Whiteness, critical race scholar Cheryl Harris (1993) coined the phrase “Whiteness as property.” This phrase captures the reality that being perceived as White carries more than a mere racial classification. It is a social and institutional status and identity imbued with legal, political, economic, and social rights and privileges that are denied to others.”

-- Sensoy/DiAngelo, "Is Everyone Really Equal?"

Critical Race Theory regards "whiteness" as property. Not simply in the "helium has the property of low density, high thermal conductivity" sense. But in the sense of an exclusive club you can be either born into or buy your way into, like a country club. In effect, it means someone can be disavowed as a "sellout" ("acting white," "race traitor," "internalized racism"), who sucked up to the members to gain their favor and admittance to the club. Because race essentialism, as Reilly touched upon.

[yesthatsatumbler]

Yeah, I get the question (and sometimes the brand names are jarring!) but the specific alternatives here sounded weird for me. If this is supposed to be set in the 2020s I'd say "she put the address into her phone map" (perhaps "phone map app", or just "map app" because apps are supposed to be on phones anyway*) or maybe something like "asked her phone for directions" - which would be conveniently ambiguous between Google, Yandex, Waze, and a bunch of other more marginal options. (I do have to admit that "she set her Google Maps to give directions" would sound a bit like product placement unless it's deliberately intended to be a detailed look. I'd be fine with something like "she put the address into Google Maps", though.)

When I read "she put the address in her GPS" I'm imagining a standalone GPS device that was 1) advanced enough to put an address into (I believe there used to be specific CDs with the databases...) and 2) not yet just part of the smartphone. So, yes, 00s to mid-10s (and it was probably a Garmin). (Side-note: technically, GPS is supposed to be another brand rather than a generic term (competing with e.g. Glonass), and modern "GPS" devices actually use several of those systems at once! But the genericization on that one had bolted long ago and if you say "GPS" you'd be understood better than if you tried to look for actual generic terms.)

More generically (...somewhat following on to the GPS point just above), sometimes you have a problem where the brand name is so much more familiar that using the generic name for whatever service it is would just look weird! If it would even be intelligible at all.

Suppose that you don't want to say Twitter in your 2024 book because you don't think your 2026 or 2036 readers would know what Twitter is. (I'm using Twitter as an example because it's one case where it would actually be plausible that in a few years there'd be people unfamiliar with the brand name, but conveniently it also makes the following point easier to state.) What would you use? "Microblog" (or, worse, "microblogging service") would sound ridiculous. "Social media" is too generic (unless you want your readers to assume it's Facebook). "Mastodon" is even more specific (and might not necessarily be a recognizable thing in 2030 either). "X" could easily be just as unintelligible in the future (especially if it's later renamed to something else again) and in the meantime it makes you look like a Musk fanboy. So pretty much you'd need to either make up a brand (and hope it's not the actual name of something unrelated) or give in and say Twitter.

OTOH if your characters are using Twitter (or Google - Maps or otherwise - or Siri, or Facebook, or Discord, or indeed Tumblr... or, in one unfortunate example that comes to mind, MySpace) in, say, 2231 (or some other blatantly-far-future date), then either you're deliberately making a point about the persistence of existing brands, or you should probably change that to something less time-specific, and/or something made up for the story. (I'll give "GPS" a pass, unless it's set on another planet. Even then it's probably not that bad of a choice.)

And as a final side-note - I do love it when a story set in a particular time period uses authentic technology and recognizable brand names for that time period.

It's great if your characters in 2006 are posting on MySpace and putting addresses in MapQuest! (Though they probably wouldn't be doing it on their phones...) If anything it's more jarring if the story uses a brand name (or other technology) that didn't actually exist in the relevant time period (no, Rowling, there were no PlayStations in 1994, or not in the UK anyway).

(BTW, I voted for the third option in the poll, because it was a convenient "it depends" option that didn't really hinge on whether Google and GPS were in fact the same thing. Which they aren't, but not for the reason that the OP was trying to imply.)

*) unless you're Discord and don't like the word "bot" for some reason

Reading a book now that in the same few paragraphs mentioned Siri, google maps, and another app all at once, and I was kind of overwhelmed by how specific that is—to Apple, to right now, etc. I got bogged down in wondering if that section would be legible in 15 years, like if Siri goes away or is renamed or no one uses Apple phones.

What are your thoughts on books including specific app or brand names, which might end up dating it (like all books with “twitter” in them are now Pre 2024 books)?

Aka, would you prefer to write/read “she set her google maps to give directions” or “she put the address in her gps.”

[alaskatalks]

Abuse in the Youtube Vlogging Community — My Experiences

Note 07/07/2021: My original posting was removed by unknown so this will now live here. Please be aware of the content warnings.

Apr 26·14 min read

2012–2018

CW Mention of; Suicide, Assault, Blood, Rape, Deceased Person(s)/‘Suicide Forest Video’

I’m writing this statement to not only provide background on the toxic and abusive culture of the community at the time but to support the multiple other people who have recently come forward detailing abuse from within the UK vlogging Youtube community, and to finally talk about these incidents publicly after carrying them for so long alone.

As I am writing this, one of those mentioned has contacted several mutual acquaintances to stop me from sharing my own story to those people privately,then when they and I didn’t, this person quickly began to smear my name. Because of this I want to begin with some basic background and thoughts which will be most likely be used/twisted in the coming days/weeks by those I mention.

I will only be discussing physically abusive events I was personally privy to but to keep this specific I will be omitting the many micro and macro-aggressions I experienced as usually the only black mixed/non-white and working-class individual in the room/group. It was clear to me quickly that if you were an “other” in certain ways, you’d be open to mockery, namely also if you were working class or lacking financially, I’d heard Chris repeatedly make remarks and mean comments behind the backs of his own guests/friends at various events and parties in his own home in addition to others making similar comments. Because I appeared white passing that time especially; I made my heritage/ethnicity explicitly clear when it first began as a failed attempt to minimize racial remarks around me and then from then on, kept my private life private from many in the group. I learned quickly to ignore a lot directed at me — as I was younger and possessed no media industry contacts or clout/followers at the time, I had to accept my place in this kind of mostly elitist clique/working environment as the only way to continue working with the people I looked up to.

I met everyone personally and got into the community when I was 16/17 after being a fan for many years, contacting CB via post and then emailing him, I wanted to get into television eventually and thought working with YouTube vloggers I looked up to would be a great first step in that direction. Everything detailed below I had previously tried to discuss with those involved privately, but was unsupported and thrown away both professionally and personally.

Rachel

I want to talk briefly about Rachel as I was around just before she joined the general group so was witness to a lot of things. I have spoken to Rachel privately but want to share the frustration and bitterness I feel and felt publicly. Please read her statement via twitter for their story. (In addition to addressing the dangerously hypercritical individuals I have seen crawling out of the woodwork to send her empty public displays of ‘support’ whilst in the past they contributed heavily to the environment which fostered abuse or carried it out themselves.)

The first few times I met Rachel it was at different pubs, and so I had always assumed that she was at least 18 on joining the general group, I was also told (unprompted) about her familial connections within the media/television industry — something that I now believe contributed to many of the youtubers mentioned overlooking basic welfare issues and red flags, and instead thinking of furthering their careers. I spent close to a year trying to help as I could see certain red flags in her ‘relationship’ with JSL, him struggling very heavily and publicly with alcoholism at the time, and Rachel seemingly struggling also. I made my concerns known repeatedly because I was worried, having myself suffered from various abuse from a young age I instinctively wanted to help.

However, close friends of Rachel herself and others, namely Bown, sent me the repeated and clear message that I was “in the way”, this was a message Bown kept telling me once he was living with JSL, who I had begun seeing months prior to Rachel meeting him. I was told by them that my concern was only jealousy and experienced an abundance of side eyes, verbal abuse, bad mouthing, and gossip — I was just a ‘jealous bitch’ in many eyes. (This all despite me being polyamorous with my primary partner from before dating JSL to this current day) I continued to help Rachel whenever I saw her in person before ending things with JSL and distancing myself because not only was I incredibly uncomfortable dating someone who was in a unhealthy situation, but I was very selfishly fed up receiving so much hate when I did speak my mind on the subject. In hindsight, especially after finding out recently that Bown was aware of Rachel’s age, I wish I’d have stuck around.

Rachel is incredible and I hope the following can contribute in some way to validating all those who were victimized by these same people in addition to others with similar stories. For Rachel’s full statement please read it on her Twitter in its entirety @rachelkiki_

MT

Beginning with MT, I had been a huge fan of The Man Time Podcast and The Fratocrats for years before so on meeting him at a party for the first time at C.B’s place, I was excited to talk to him, however, as soon as he found out I had a partner (literally the first thing he asked/said to me after hello) he walked away from me and didn’t interact with me in any way for the rest of the party. A few months later when I was single we slept together for the first time, halfway through he held my wrists down suddenly and just as I thought he was going to kiss me he instead spat in my mouth. I did not ask for, nor want this and reacted as negatively as you’d expect, then feeling incredibly uncomfortable made some excuses and tried to stop things physically.

It was a little while later I found out that he had spoken to a group of very popular youtubers, one of whom was Tom. I found out that not only did MT “report back” to these youtubers detailing a story about how we had had sex and I was in fact, horrendous at it, but hearing about it from C.B. in the form of the question whilst he smiled jokingly “Is this true?” was not only super inappropriate but humiliating.

These were people I had looked up to for years and really wanted to work within the future, but now that seemed like it wouldn’t happen, especially if I ‘made a fuss’. MT wanted to meet up with me at a later point (once I’d confronted him repeatedly afterwards) though when we met it was clear he just wanted to have more sex and the half assed ‘apology’ was more tokenistic. He was sorry “If” anything he did upset me. Because of my own previous trauma (and low self-esteem admittedly) I thought the only way to redeem my reputation would be to continue to see him — I thought if others knew or saw us flirting casually even, it would negate his rumors. This obviously didn’t help and the damage had been done.

Tom*

Shortly after that, whilst on a work trip with CB and others, Tom approached me at a bar and asked me for a photo, I thought it was odd but perhaps he was just being friendly. I was a big fan of Eddsworld so I was okay with it, he took a photo of us both, making sure I smiled and then sent it to MT who was sitting a few tables away in our group as a further way to humiliate me. I spoke about it with some of the others privately after being laughed at, who seemed used to that kind of behavior. I just needed to get used to it and/or “lighten up” so I tried to remain professional and focused, though it seemed more and more like certain people viewed me as disposable entertainment almost, rather than a person.

*I do want to note, as of writing this today, Tom is the only person to reach out to genuinely apologise, which I highly appreciate.

Bown

I could fill multiple pages with the amount of racial charged, sexist and abusive things Bown has done and/or said to me, for example, he berated me the day I got my first big television job, calling me stupid, useless and implying I was only hired because of my ethnicity. He almost always sent his hate via text or instant messaging, I mention that because he commonly expressed all his negativity behind a screen, then in person, he would do a lot of gaslighting. When drunk at his worst, his understanding of the word no became non-existent when I would repeatedly ask not to be touched or requested space.

On one occasion when I had made clear it was a platonic hang, we were watching a film when he suddenly reached over and pressed his fingers into my breasts. I felt instantly violated, I froze for a few seconds and then pulled my shirt up to cover more of my chest/create a visual barrier. I said don’t/stop and continued watching the film. In shock — we weren’t even touching or hugging before- that but he nonetheless did it again and laughed as if it was some kind of game. I made it very clear I was not interested and did not like what he had done. This repeated when he was drunk and said he wanted to apologise, it was at a party which wasn’t the time nor place for that kind of conversation, then, with me saying so then no multiple times, he kept grabbing my waist, then arms and shoulders, refusing to give me the space I was requesting.

CB

There was a lot of disrespect and ugliness I experienced from my first experience ‘working’ (unpaid at first and then at or under minimum wage afterwards) to present but again, I’m only discussing the physical stuff. The first physical time he hurt me was when on tour sharing a room (due to a lack of space as we were out of London) I was sharing with JSL on the floor and Bing had the bed alone. I was awoken in the early hours of the morning to a small piece of metal (which turned out to be a zip as I recall) from a pillow, hitting me hard. I was confused and so thought it was an accident — I assumed the pillow had fallen off the bed by mistake so reached over and put it back on Bing’s bed before going back to sleep. I was then awoken repeatedly by Bing’s hand hitting me in my face hard and repeatedly, though I tried to turn around with my back to him, I then experienced the same but on the back of my head, and my hair being pulled. He had thought the very loud snoring which was waking him up was me, but it was in fact JSL (most who have lived with him or slept in close corners knows he can be a snorer) the next morning I woke having a panic attack which I dealt with before asking him why he did that as it really hurt, he replied that I was snoring but when I told him of the mistake he just looked at me funnily and that was that. No apology ever appeared.

The worst experience I had with him was at his house during a party; it was winding down and I could sense him rushing people out the room in a hushed tone; I was looking at his bookcase, filled with cd’s at the time. On hearing the hushed tones I could sense something was wrong/odd and looked around to find myself suddenly alone in his room. I said a quick sorry, that I didn’t realise and will go join everyone else upstairs if he wants to sleep, he said it was no problem and I should have a drink before bed with him. I was content looking at the cds and before I could answer he brought me a cup and poured out a drink for me (clearly over pouring). I had just eyed a specific CD from my all-time favourite band (they were very niche at the time) and exclaimed in joy before showing it to him, he responded that a fan had sent it to him, I laughed because I was that fan, I had included the CD in a fan letter I sent to him years back. He was giving me a really odd look and then as I said ‘anyway,’ laughing in that british ‘I should get going’ kind of way.

He grabbed the CD before putting it on and pulling me towards the bed. We were sitting side by side and as soon as he grabbed me towards the bed I gave a nervous laugh saying something along the lines of ‘no, I don’t’ when he interrupted me to say it’s all fine, just one song and I need to drink, pushing my cup up which I’d been holding with both hands motionlessly since he gave it to me. As soon as I took a sip, he put his hand on my waist, I kept protesting as he pushed more towards then against me and repeated things like “It’s no big deal” and “It will be fast” ignoring my physical resistance and me audibly saying I did not want to. He placed his hand on mine and pulled it towards his groin area — this was when I finally stopped freezing and pulled away forcibly, I then sat up off the bed and made a beeline for the door — apologizing as I went. As soon as I was on the other side of the door I burst out crying and having a severe panic attack, I muffled the noise and went upstairs where I knew others were sleeping before I couldn’t keep quiet. I cannot remember who else was upstairs but there were multiple people (at least 5) sleeping in various places, I woke up quite a few before being calmed down and going to sleep. He hired me one last time after that as a producer.

H H S

H.H.S is the long time editor of the Paul brothers, he’s worked with many large youtubers and was one of (if not the main) editor of now notorious Logan Paul’s “Suicide Forest Video”,– the following happened around that time for context and is one of the biggest catalysts in my completely giving up on working within the YouTube vlogging sphere. H.H.S had been lightly dragged on his Facebook by friends on a post where he apologized for the Logan Paul video he responded with a fundraiser event post (both this, and the fundraiser have since been deleted) the fundraiser itself was to a suicide prevention charity, although he created it, he hadn’t and didn’t invite anyone directly to it — in hindsight, it’s clear it was just lazy personal pr. I had my own mental health and neurological episode and had attempted to take my own life a little before, so I had created an event with friends to celebrate being alive and beginning new/better things. Not many could come on short notice, though H.H.S was the first (and only) person to click ‘attending’ on the event page, which he did very quickly once I sent out invites.

He never was overly kind or supportive emotionally, so I thought that because of the amount of mutual colleagues, close friends and vloggers invited he would look very crass not to come. I was upset that many couldn’t make it and drank far too much, though I could Just about walk by the time we left the bar — the last 4 of us decided to head back to H.H.S to drink and hang out more as a group. I was meant to text my friend and her partner the address whilst they went home quickly to grab a coat as they lived nearish. H.H.S helped me into the cab and we made our way to his place, it’s then he put his hand behind the seat and began touching my leg. I thought he had a partner at the time and so was confused as he mentioned her earlier in the night, I asked him about this roughly over drinks at his house (which he poured himself) and he said it was fine, I accepted this as I was very drunk by this time and being ethically non-monogamous at the time; I assumed naively that they talked before this. I don’t remember what happened after this until later, I know that I was so drunk I completely forgot to ask H.H.S again for the address, let alone that I had to contact my friend at all.

I remember roughly that things seemed to me above board, but then I experienced a huge amount of pain as he had pushed me onto my front and put his entire weight onto me, I started to say stop, and no as he put more weight onto me and was trying to enter me anally. I told him to stop and that it hurt (he had done this before to me but stopped after a few seconds of me saying no and we discussed how it wasn’t okay with me especially without prior consent so I didn’t expect this). He then put his weight further on me so I was prone and continued for several minutes, I managed to move my body so it wouldn’t hurt as much, though by this point I was stuck under his weight and could barely breathe. Once he had “finished” he got off of me and said something about how this was a good “purge” for him but he loves his girlfriend and so should sleep in the living room. I was in total shock as he just exited the room.

I had no way of getting home by myself and triggered , drunk and confused I went to sleep. I woke up to H.H.S typing away on his computer next to my bed and I shouted “bucket” multiple times so he ran and got me one which I then projectile vomited into. I apologized and went to the bathroom to continue throwing up before heading back to his bedroom to find my things and get home. As I was doing this I asked about the video, he wasn’t talking otherwise and I was extremely uncomfortable trying to hold back a panic attack and further barfing. I waited for my taxi to come as he confirmed everything about the video that I had expected, he boasted about being the main editor of that video, how it was his idea to blur the body, how they wanted more views and they (him and Logan Paul) obviously didn’t care genuinely for anything to do with suicide prevention — this was after excusing various racist acts and remarks made by Logan.

H.H.S didn’t contact me for a full week after this incident, when I got home I discovered I was bleeding from his forced entry, and went into another panic attack. I tried to contact Bing, who had introduced me to him in the first place, when I was met with a barrage of blame. He told me a lot of things like ‘What did you expect?’, ‘That’s on you’ and on me beginning to cry and get emotional, he quickly started to distance himself saying that we aren’t “really friends” anymore, and further slut shaming. I wanted help and was rejected, not only by him but the few others also who I contacted. I figured if my friends would not help me, why would the Police believe me?

I reached out to H.H.S privately but was ignored, he read my messages but did not respond, though remained friends with me on facebook. He now has his own channel with 134k subscribers and won a Streamy Award for his editing work with Logan Paul. If you’ve read all of this, thank you sincerely. I’ve carried this for far too long alone, every time I heard of the people involved and even the Paul brothers names, things just came rushing back violently. After being rejected by so many I believed to be my friends, I decided I shouldn’t come out publicly at the time as I thought no one would believe me, that in addition to the fact that I valued the content they created to such a vast degree that I thought it more important to keep quiet.

Thanks to a sadly long list of brave people, I now know that I matter and so does my voice. I hope that with this, I can finally begin to let all these incidents go and know I appreciate every single person who has been an ally and/or spoke their own truths.

#MeToo #BlackLivesMatter #StopAisanHate

Alaska Harrison

[aion-rsa]

Dear Evan Hansen May Be the Most Uncomfortable Musical Ever Made

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

There was a moment near the beginning of Robert Zemeckis’ odyssey into mo-cap animation where the press believed the magic trick: Yes, these soulless dead-eyed automatons who kind of look like Tom Hanks in a Santa suit are the future, we were told. Yet no matter how much digital snow was drawn on Hanks’ head, never once did anyone feel Christmas cheer. I was reminded of this trip to the uncanny valley while watching Dear Evan Hansen. And not just because of the incredulity of producers thinking actor Ben Platt could still pass for a teenager while pushing 30.

To be sure, there is some definite Steve Buscemi with a skateboard energy to the way Platt hunches his shoulders and quivers his lip, attempting to mimic high school awkwardness and appearing just awkward. However, you don’t need to be John Travolta or Olivia Newton-John to lull an audience into a suspension of disbelief. No, the issue with Dear Evan Hansen is a tone deaf and wall-to-wall cringe of a plot that somehow got a pass on stage. Whether something was lost in translation or if intent was mistaken for achievement is not exactly clear. But either way, this is a stunning whiff on a fundamental level, one which spectacularly misreads the implications of its fable and naively endorses the healing power of social media likes. If this were on one of those apps, you would unsubscribe.

The machinations of Dear Evan Hansen‘s passion play begin when Evan Hansen (Platt) writes a letter to himself which reads like a desperate cry for help. These self-directed correspondences were the idea of Evan’s therapist due to the high schooler’s bouts of anxiety or maybe depression. It’s vague. Whatever the case, when fellow loner Connor (Colton Ryan) reads the note and keeps it, things quickly spiral out of hand because Connor kills himself.

Mistaking the letter as Connor’s suicide note, the boy’s grieving parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) connect with Evan, eager to cling to something, anything, left of their son. Evan tries to tell them the truth, but they seem so sad, and Connor’s sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) is just so cute, that maybe Evan will let this whole misunderstanding ride. Sure, he’ll say, he was Connor’s best friend. And hey, since Evan will sing about loving thyself on YouTube, this makes him a tragic hero for the alienated and downtrodden, right? Right?!

A theater phenomenon when it premiered first Off-Broadway and then on the Great White Way in 2016, Dear Evan Hansen was previously received as a poppy tearjerker that spoke to the importance of helping those living with mental illness, and finding a way for those who feel like outsiders to be made welcome. The last element proved especially appealing to commercial interests, in no small part because of Benji Pasek and Justin Paul’s music and lyrics about teenage loneliness, and Platt’s undeniably heartfelt performance.

Yet not unlike when Cats was transferred to cinema, flaws that could previously be glossed over in a theater were now glaring on film sets. Also similar to Cats, the choices made here by director Stephen Chbosky and screenwriter Steven Levenson (who works from his own  Tony-winning book) often undermine musical moments that might’ve played a bit better on the boards. For instance, a song wherein Evan Hansen and an imaginary version of the dead Connor sing a jolly duet could work in a medium where artifice is high, but in a film photographed at a bland, beige high school, the sequence borders on tasteless.

That insistence in grounding this in a visual verisimilitude—wherein the clear intent is that this will be seen as an important movie, the kind that wins awards—poorly serves the film’s lead performance, with Platt at times looking like a sweatier version of Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused: the old guy cruising for high school girls. But it also exposes the saccharine limitations of the narrative.

Dear Evan Hansen is a story in which a lonely kid makes a horrible mistake and then doubles down on exploiting another lonely kid’s suicide because of the instant gratification it gives him as a social media celebrity, and because it allows him to insinuate himself among a grieving family. Rather than deeply exploring the unpleasant and even cruel consequences of these choices, the film weaves and dodges, attempting to always make excuses for Evan’s actions and assure viewers he’s a nice, relatable every-teen. He is a character suffering from mental illness, but the script never takes the time to address what that mental illness is.

His sudden popularity on Instagram and TikTok is thus treated as meaningful growth for both him and the whole school, rather than the performative and vapid exploitation of tragedy that it is. And that vapidity is then couched in admittedly ear-wormy songs about self-acceptance with all the depth and specificity of a Katy Perry anthem. But then perhaps that’s the point since Perry-esque ballads in Pasek and Paul’s last movie musical, The Greatest Showman, became instant social media sensations too.

There is an early scene in Dear Evan Hansen where a couple of teenagers who were low-key mean girl bullying Connor take a selfie in front of the now dead kid’s locker; it’s a feigned show of belated compassion. A cynic might argue this is what the entire movie is doing, although that would be too harsh. The film’s heart is in the right place, with hopes and aspirations to have a serious conversation about difficult issues. Nonetheless, the end result is pretty much the same. Like its lead character, the movie doesn’t realize its paying lip-service to trauma and the lonely for its own benefit, and the fact it is then so pleased with its cloying bromides makes this infinitely more uncomfortable to watch than CGI pussycats.

Dear Evan Hansen premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens in U.S. theaters on Sept. 24 and in the UK on Oct. 22.

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The post Dear Evan Hansen May Be the Most Uncomfortable Musical Ever Made appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[pers-books]

Jen de Critique's Casebook

Dear Jen de Critique, I am a committed socialist, and I hate prejudice of any kind: racism, homophobia, classism, sexism, ageism, ableism, you name it. However, I find trans people a bit yucky. Can you offer any advice about how to reconcile my pro-equality views with my feelings about trans people? Yours sincerely, Tribune of the People Dear Tribune, I’m glad you asked! Actually, I have lots of advice. So much, that I’ve divided it into a multi-point plan! Demonize ideas, not people We’ve all been there. We want to: • deny trans children access to medical care • be able to humiliate trans people at work without consequence • make it impossible for trans people to go to the toilet without fear of assault or arrest However, oppressing a marginalised group sounds bad for a person on the left. The solution is: stop talking about trans people and start talking about “trans ideology.” When you say you’re against trans ideology you’re invoking not images of human beings being stripped of basic rights but a vague, scary, faceless idea. Better still, you’re gesturing towards powerful, behind-the-scenes forces - a powerful cabal with a stranglehold on lawmakers, judges and the media. (The fact that there are no trans lawmakers, no trans people in the judiciary and no trans people in senior media positions might seem to be a problem, but never fear! Simply because there are no trans people in those positions, it’s not something you’ll ever be asked to address.) One point. It’s probably not a good idea to be too specific. JKR’s favourite, Magdalen Berns, linked the trans movement to George Soros, but that just made her sound like an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. Better to keep it vague! The vaguer, the scarier and the harder to disprove. Ignore your bedfellows. The biggest promoters of anti-trans propaganda are of course the right-wing press; The Times, Telegraph, Mail, Economist, Spiked, etc. The biggest funders are conservative organisations, often linked to anti-abortion and anti-women’s rights agendas. The biggest promoters of anti-trans legislation are right-wing governments: Bible-belt states such as Tennessee and Texas, or authoritarian countries such as Hungary and Russia. And, let’s not forget that our own Liz Truss, the Equalities Minister, who just called on government departments to cut ties with the UK’s premier LGBT rights organisation, is in fact a Tory. I admit this doesn’t look good. Perhaps you’re asking whether it’s likely that Rupert Murdoch, Liz Truss, Viktor Orban and the rest have your best socialist interests at heart? In answer, I just ask you to think back to previous occasions when Left and Right found common cause. The Hitler-Stalin pact, for example – that worked out fine in the end, right? Again, perhaps you’re worried that trans people are just being used as a wedge issue, and that once the precedent has been set the same tactics will be applied to suppress gay rights, abortion rights and women’s rights. To that objection, I reply - “Oh look, there’s a trans person over there, that’s your real enemy!!!!!” Women and children first! One of the problems we face is that trans people are objectively harmless. At this point, for example, there is ample evidence from around the world that trans women are no danger to cis women in toilets, changing rooms or anywhere else. But don’t worry! A visceral mental image of a bestubbled man waving his willy about will make much more impact than facts. Moreover, as 1950s lynch mobs and 1970s homophobes alike proved, framing someone as a threat to women (especially white women) and children is a very effective way to by-pass the need for evidence. As a good feminist, of course you deplore the idea of women as helpless beings in need of rescue whenever you meet it in a Grimm fairy tale or a Hollywood movie, but for now I need you to put all doubts aside and embrace that meme wholeheartedly. Don’t worry – it’s just a means to an end! The Cloud of Unknowing Finally, please do all you can to preserve your ignorance of trans people and issues. This requires constant vigilance, but thousands of fellow lefties have proved that it can be done! The internet may have made it more difficult in one sense, but the echo chamber nature of social media has been a godsend in others. In particular, please be careful to stay ignorant of the following… Gender theory. Just as philosophy was once said to be footnotes to Plato, so for you, all real gender theory is footnotes to Janice Raymond. You can safely dismiss developments such as intersectionality (suggested phrase: “a distraction from the real issues”), and thinkers such as Judith Butler (“bloviated postmodern nonsense”). Mostly, of course, you can and should absolutely ignore what actual trans people have to say about their own experience. “Nothing about us without us” doesn’t apply here! You definitely shouldn’t read Julia Serano or Susan Stryker, any more than you’d listen to gay people on sexuality or Black people on racism. The one exception is of course that, if you can discover a detransitioner or a self-hating trans person, you should definitely make them into your spokesperson and wheel them out at every opportunity. They are rare, but they are a precious find! It’s not in any way the same as finding a woman who supports patriarchy and pretending that she speaks for all women. (Unfortunately, I don’t have room to explain why here – just take my word for it.) Biology Science is messy and complicated, so it’s best to steer clear of it and stick to a few slogans, such as “Sex is real.” (This one has the advantage of implying that trans people deny that sex is real, which makes them seem unreasonable.) Don’t, whatever you do, talk to actual biologists or psychologists currently working on the subjects of sex or gender. They are obviously interested in maintaining the trans-friendly status quo, and their testimony can be ignored. (Side note: you may have wondered whether people with intersex conditions complicate the issue. My advice? Acknowledge they exist, but in the next breath make sure to dismiss them as a negligible minority.) Hate groups Groups such as the LGB Alliance and Woman’s Place UK sound, from the names, as if their primary purpose is to advance the rights of LGB people and Women respectively, right? Certainly, their names don’t suggest that they are exclusively or almost exclusively anti-trans hate groups. Goodness knows, women face much bigger problems than the existence of trans people; while the LGB Alliance must surely spend most of its resources and influence in fighting anti-LBG legislation, advising on inclusive language and policies, and so on? It’s basically like Stonewall used to be before it became trans inclusive, right? My advice is, just keep believing that. I definitely wouldn’t go to the LGB Alliance web site to see whether all their activities are in fact anti-trans focused, along with a side line in delegitimating any other sexualities than LGB and straight. To be on the safe side, forget everything I said in the previous paragraph. Trans People It’s best not to meet trans people at all. If you must, make sure it only happens in high-tension environments where they will necessarily be at a disadvantage: e.g. by challenging them to an impromptu debate about whether they should be allowed to exist, demanding they immediately give you a watertight definition of transphobia, etc. If a trans person behaves badly, you are perfectly entitled to take that behaviour as representative of all trans people everywhere. (Of course, if you extrapolated in this way with, say, someone of a particular ethnicity, it would undoubtedly be racist; but, as I’ve already explained, for our purposes trans people are more appropriately treated as ideas than human beings.) If you can't avoid them, remember that all trans people fall on one side or other of a very sharp line. Either they are a gross parody of the gender they identify with (a trans woman wearing make-up or a skirt! A trans man who works out!) or they fall far too short of it (a trans woman with hairy legs! A trans man whose voice hasn’t dropped!). The only certainty is that they will always fail, and that with your well-honed gender-critical skills you will always be in a position to call them out on it, and to know that you’re defending feminism and humanity from the evil trans menace in the process. Good luck! Jen de Critique

[Source]

[lizacstuff]

Bunch of anons about Carina and Roswell NM drama

Under the cut because it’s long and gossipy...

Anonymous said: Whatever nonsense Carina may have been up to with Jeanine and Nathan, both the leads have seemed to keep their private issues to themselves by not telling other cast or friends. That's why it angers me that the person who leaked the information disregarded Jeanine as a person and victim.

I’m of two minds on this.  On one hand I totally agree and I hate that Jeanine’s name was drug into this and her involvement was shared by the multiple inside sources, but on the other hand I do not like Carina, I think she was awful to work for, and I think it’s a good thing if it’s know in the industry that she created friction on set and was investigated by HR.  

She was so unprofessional, just from what we could see as fans, that she should NOT be put in charge of another show any time soon. So I think for the sake of people she will work with in the future, it’s a good thing it’s out there.  She has a whole lot of growing to do before she should ever work in television again. 

You make a good point about Jeanine and Nathan keeping their business to themselves.  Carina is out there over-sharing constantly, putting every neurosis on full display, and forcing half the cast to be out drinking and entertaining her on a regular basis. While those two, kept quiet and out of the spotlight. In interviews/panels they’ve both been completely professional, doing their jobs while also being charming, funny and eloquent.  

It was obvious to those of us watching closely that all was not well between J/N and Carina when the season started shooting. Carina was bitchier when she talked about them and those characters than she had been before, and J/N were nowhere to be seen in her braggy out-partyin’-with-my-cast IG stories and posts.  

As you say, it doesn’t look like J/N tried to drag any other cast or crew into whatever the issue was. I’m not sure the same can be said for Carina, that speaks volumes about the character of all involved. 

Anonymous said: I saw that abnormallyadam is doing a live social media thing with Jeanine and Vlamis soon. I guess we might get more information then and if Jeanine decides to say anything.

How hilarious would it be if Adam gets the scoop of a lifetime!?

I’m guessing this chat or whatever it is was set up before Jeanine and Vlamis knew the studio was going to swoop in and make their lives a whole lot better by firing Carina. So it will be interesting to see if it still happens on schedule or if it’s postponed for awhile.  

If it does go on, I think they will probably cover it really quickly and superficially like Vlamis did when he was schilling his merch the other night and then move on.  They won’t deep dive into it, that’s for sure. 

Anonymous said: Carina has been tweeting incessantly today! Like tweeting about other meaningless things won't make people forget lol. Also about that anon message you received about unfollowing nathan - wowwww she used to be up his butt.

Yes, remember the days when Carina used him as her social media crutch (every post she makes like that with a hot actor or country singer is basically her rampant insecurities saying: “hey look at the hot guy(s) who hang out with me and take pictures with me, it means I have value ya’ll!”) before she moved onto Trevino and then Vlamis.  So sad.   

They were clearly friends after The Originals and she invited him to audition.  I’m glad she did, he’s great in the role. Although it sounds like he was lucky that the President of the CW saw him and told her he was a leading man, since she didn’t see him as a lead. Sometime a friend’s preconceived notions might actually hold a person back... 

Who knows what happened, but just knowing human nature and Carina’s energy, I’ve always wondered if she thought she was going to have her friend on set and he was gonna be her social crutch, her go-to to entertain her and party with her, but right off the bat he and Jeanine got together so during the first season filming he wasn’t so much interested in the single, going-out partying lifestyle that she’s clearly addicted to and that rankled her a bit. Perhaps she lost her party buddy to her leading lady, and the loss of that attention “displeased” her. (to quote Kamran who said Carina told the writers to punish actors who displeased her by reducing their screen time. Interesting thought, no?)

Anonymous said: Well the interesting thing is some of the other people she follows don't post much either and she continues to follow them. Interesting interesting.

I know. She didn’t unfollow him because of that. That was definitely a show of cutting ties with him. It was probably in a fit of rage because she can’t unfollow Jeanine (because that would look terrible).  Also she has been so humiliated between being unceremoniously fired and losing her development deal with WB, the Hollywood Reporter article making her look terrible, and that writer spilling tea, that my guess is she’s hoping to shift focus to someone else and she knows unfollowing him will make us all wonder why. 

Anonymous said: Well shoot, maybe it was Nathan and not Jeanine who went to hr? And Carina found out? Or Nathan took the fall? Sorry I'm just going down a rabbit hole of conspiracy.

In my opinion there’s no reason to think those sources got it wrong. I would guess that Jeanine was involved, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t also involve Nathan.  Those two are a self-professed team, so no reason to think they wouldn't be in this instance as well. 

Anonymous said: Does this mean she'll unfollow Jeanine too??

I’m sure she wants to, but she can’t unless she wants to confirm that, yes, there was friction on the set and, yes, there was a specific problem with her leading lady.

Carina went out of her way to try and combat the “rumors” about her and Jeanine not getting along, addressing the situation in her goodbye post-- drawing more attention to it in the process-- so unfollowing her now would just make her look foolish and like everything she said was a lie and everything from the inside sources is true.  

Anonymous said: Carina will definitely do something stupid. She can't help herself. But even though there's no reason to follow Nathan, he's been inactive on Twitter for over a year and for her to unfriend now during this drama and mess...how is that a coincidence?

As I said above, I know it’s not a coincidence.  She’s dumb because by doing that she pretty much confirmed that there was friction on the set.  If there wasn’t, she wouldn’t be unfollowing the person in the main cast who she was closest too prior to the show. 

Part of me wonders if, as an old friend, she asked him for something (to defend her or a show of support) and he wouldn't do it.  Perhaps she’s most hurt by him not supporting her since they were friends before and she did give him a lead role on a network show (and also accidentally introduced him to his girlfriend.)  Maybe she thought he owed her and he didn't step up to defend her or even just give a tacit show of support by responding to her social media posts on leaving??

I’m guessing if he had come out of social media hibernation to give her one of those paltry “Thanks for everything” responses to her IG post like the other actors she wouldn't have unfollowed him. 

Anonymous said: Someone said the writer deleted all his tweets about Carina.

Not surprising, it was a crazy spree he was on, who wants to bet that he got contacted by a lawyer late Friday night?

I’m sure Carina was doing everything in her power to threatened him and to get him to stop. 

Anonymous said: I remember the writer also referring to Nathan as Carina's "friend." Is it in quotations because they are not actually friends? Frenemy? Carina was recently saying nice things about Nathan so based on her perspective, she thinks they were still on good terms?

Well they were apparently friends before he was cast, what happened after that is hard to say. They seemed fine during the promotion of season 1, but as soon as season 2 started filming, Carina’s tone when talking about him and Max got ugly and Nathan and Jeanine were staying far away from her socially. I mean Jeanine hosted a ladies Friendsgiving at their house, where 40 women from the cast and crew came over for a Thanksgiving feast, but the female showrunner wasn’t there. Hmmmm...

However, this spring things seemed to have thawed a bit.  Jeanine and Carina would occasionally like each other’s IG post (someone pointed out to me that had stopped during summer of 2019 and they didn’t engage with each other’s posts much if at all during S2 filming) Jeanine and Carina did that IG live and Carina was talking positively about Nathan and Max and seemed to be setting him up for a big season 3 with the dual roles and talking excitedly about that, so honestly, to me, it seemed like they had made their peace.  Perhaps Carina getting fired (and the straw that broke the camel’s back on that was clearly her idiotic tirade against the UK distributor) brought back up all the issues??? Or maybe Carina blamed them because of the prior issues? Or maybe they didn’t support her with the studio when she was trying to salvage her job? All I know is that Carina’s public behavior on social media is enough grounds to fire her, so she has no business blaming anyone but herself. 

Anonymous said: Someone said to the writer that jeanine, amber and nathan are staying silent on the matter and kamran replied that "Silence speaks louder than words." just above that they also were wondering who Carina harassed and bullied into silence? was it nathan?

Who knows... ask the writer. 

Anonymous said: Carina going from Zapit straight to writing for TVD is peak white privilege. After that THR article you could tell she believed a little too much how far that privilege would get her. Good riddance. Good luck getting another job for being such a big liability. I don't see any corporation hiring her again.

I think the only way she’s getting another job in TV anytime soon is if Julie gives it to her. She’s talented, once she grows up maybe she’ll be capable of running a show, but it was clear from the peanut gallery she should never have been given that amount of responsibility that she had on RNM. 

[mavspeed]

What are your thoughts on Indian actors (and I am talking more about Indian British and Indian Americans) having to most likely have to learn how to do an Indian accent so they can get work e.g. Dev Patel or Sacha Dhawan were probably most likely required to learn how to do an Indian accent in terms of their roles e.g. Outsourced (Sacha Dwahan) - I don't know too much about his filmography but that one is where he uses the Indian accent or Slumdog millionaire and The Best Exotic Marigold 1/?

Hotel. I've just noticed that there is perhaps an expectation for people of colour to have a specific accent that might be part of that ethnicity. Like on one hand it is racist e.g. Aziz Anisari refuses to do an Indian accent due to this, but on the other hand if we look at Constance Wu's accent in FOB, it's done because her character is from Taiwan, therefore she would have a non-American accent. Which is why I like Crazy Rich Asians so much because all, if not most of the characters do not 2/?

have the stereotypical or 'heavy accent', they speak in an almost clear but also received pronounciation (it's the closest way I can describe it e.g. Nick Young's mother has an almost like articulate accent and sounds 'educated' - excuse the vocabulary, I'm trying to ecplain this the best I can). Which tbh, correct me if I'm wrong, but from experience countries such as Hong Kong and more so in India there are people who don't have what people think the Indian or Hong Kong accent, even though 3/?

They're from those countries. I've met Indian people who've grown up in India, but their accents are rather neutral. I think it just depends on socio-economic status as well, considering perhaps how well a person can speak maybe determines how well their educated (this is also talking about native English speakers). But I do not want to go on a tangent about that, but more about how it is racist to see how Hollywood often for roles where the character may be Indian but there is no 4/?

evidence to suggest that he is actually from a non-English speaking country or they just put that in because he happens to be a person of colour e.g. Ravi Patel playing a telephone operator in Transformers, which Aziz Anisari rejected because he felt it fed into the stereotype of a call centre employee with an accent. Which is I think, maybe I'm wrong but the film Sorry to Bother you plays with because it talks abouthow black people often put a 'white voice' on to sound more approachable 5/?

as the 'black voice' is considered 'unapproachable' (racism). I just want to make sense of this, as it's something I've noticed with Hollywood or western media. 6/6

i will address this but first of all what you said about crazy rich asians- look, here’s the thing. as a singaporean myself can i just say that that movie is highly inaccurate because i’ve lived with fellow chinese/indian/muslim singaporeans all my LIFE and we ALL. HAVE. SINGAPOREAN ACCENTS. even if you go off to study in the uk YOU WILL COME BACK WITH A SINGAPOREAN ACCENT. i love henry golding and gemma chan to bits god knows i do but they should have done what michelle yeoh did and attempted a singaporean accent because even with elitist pricks who studied from elitist schools like acs or ri or whatever the fuck we STILL HAVE ACCENTS. michelle yeoh did a singaporean accent and its the closest, most accurate approximation of it in the entire cast. awkwafina’s character is bullshit because i have NOT met a single singaporean who has consistently maintained a blaccent. of course racist singaporeans do a blaccent and thats because they’re racist and antiblack to an alarming degree. but if you’re chinese, indian, malay, eurasian, chindian you WILL have the singaporean accent. its inescapable. 

here’s my opinion on this- its not racist, not at all, because we all have accents. everyone from every single part of the world has an accent. if you think people can speak WITHOUT an accent, that’s because you have been brainwashed into thinking the neutralised american accent is the norm. nothing is the norm. you talk like how people around you talk like. if you audition for an indian role, of course people will xpect you to have an indian accent. if you audition for an american role, people will expect you to have an accent from that bit of america- new york or california or texas. sorry but aziz ansari refusing to do an indian accent is bullshit (and ties into a deeper discussion about indian celebrities in the indian diaspora being shameful about their brown heritage because you see this shit, again and again and again with mindy kahling and kumail nanjiani and aziz ansari like hasan minhaj is the ONLY indian celeb other than dev i’ve seen actually hype up and appreciate his skin colour and race in a really self celebratory manner), because there is nothing shameful about the indian accent. its a beautiful thing and for some reason, indians outside of india think its something derogatory or to be made fun of just because its different than what they’re used to. is it racist for white directors to assume people of a certain ethnicity automatically have that accent? yeah it is, because a little thing called a diaspora exists. but you have to realise that everyone has an accent. there’s no such thing as a status quo accent because if you think there is, congrats because not to go all anti-west but you’ve been brainwashed by the west!

idk which part of the world you’re from but as an indian singaporean who has also been to literally every single country within asia except for korea and pakistan i can tell you firsthand that no, we do have heavy accents. people from hong kong have heavy accents too. so do people from china. but its not something weird its just a Thing because lets be real, white people have heavy accents too. half the time i need subtitles for richard madden interviews to parse out what he’s saying. so tldr, nah its honestly not an issue. not for me, anyway. and crazy rich asians is a shit fucking movie do not support it 

[drelleboag]

“Who got the power”? Jese...that’s who!

So, it is confirmed, after 9 years of being a core part of the girl band Little Mix Jesy Nelson has left the building…and why? Because Jesy has had to endure unrelenting trolling and cyber bullying since appearing on the X Factor in 2011. Jesy has been targeted for the past 9 years about her looks, her body shape and her voice…all of which, in my humble opinion are odd things to target as I think Jesy is beautiful, has the figure that many women aspire to (even go “under the knife” to achieve) and an amazing singing voice. However, mine and many hundreds of thousands of voices upholding such a view has little effect on the negativity wrought by the lesser number of cruel online bullies who remain anonymous in order to spread their spiteful and incendiary “voice”.

Seven in 10 young people report experiencing cyberbullying and 26% report feeling suicidal, so clearly the psychological impact of cyberbullying impacts deeply, leading to serious mental health illness such as depression and anxiety, low self-esteem and loneliness. I remember watching Jesy’s speaking out about her experiences and the experiences of others in a documentary on BBC3 in 2019, and at the time wondering if it would relieve the venom that stalks her on social media platforms. Clearly the answer to that is a resounding “NO”, but how Jesy has navigated her own “story” since then is testament to her tenacity and resilience. So kudos to her fighting spirit and strength of character by saying in the most public way possible “enough is enough!” may she be a standard bearer for those who have to suffer at the hands of cowardly bullies who hide behind anonymised false identities whilst they vomit their vitriolic and often unsubstantiated “point of view”, provoking additional spewing of hatred and attacking from others simply “because they can”.

So why do cyberbullies and trolls do it? Well to answer that honestly, you would need to ask them…and we don’t really know who they are as they hardly step up and identify themselves…even Katy Hopkins, whose public and hateful outbursts have led to her famously being branded as the most hated Celebrity in Britain, has the Kahunas and honesty to be open about it – albeit as a means of increasing her fame and notoriety as the “villain” perhaps? Anyway, I digress…one of the key reasons that trolls troll and cyberbullies bully online is because they are anonymous. It has long been recognised that anonymity leads to deindividuation and subsequently all manner of negative behaviour…just think back to any and all crowd-based disturbance… it is individuals within the crowd that cause the most harm, act in the most violent, antisocial and even criminal ways, simply because they are anonymous, and their individual actions are less detectable. It is a small number (in the grand scheme of things) of individuals who start the ball rolling by trolling and cyberbullies continue in their wake once the poison has been injected into the comments on social media platforms. As with trolls, cyberbullies are anonymous and their actions are kept, albeit very close to the line, within the parameters of what is “legal”. In the UK cyberbullying is not, in itself a crime… shocking, but true. There are specific laws that might be breached by trolling someone online, such as the Malicious Communications Act (1988), the Protection from Harassment Act (1997) or the Communications Act (2003) to name but three…but how do you prosecute someone who is anonymous? and who ensures that their actions are as close to illegal as they can get, without (mostly) crossing that line? Basically… you can’t!

So why are celebrities such as Jesy being targeted? Is it jealousy? Or is it something else?

In answering this question, I can only voice my own view, one that I have talked about across the media for some time…it may be explained by the fact that we now pretty much all have social media and can “connect” with “@real….” Celebrity accounts across numerous platforms. Celebrities are now immediately accessible…we feed off of their comments and tweets, we see and review their photos as they live their lives in the public sphere…and as such, we feel a far stronger connection with our chosen celebs. For their part they send us “blanket statements” about how much they love us, how much they are thankful for our support of their latest album/movie/TV role/award…etc. But this is a precarious situation as now we can feel that we own our celebrity, that without us they are nothing that we gave them their status and that we can control their future success or failure. For celebrities such as Jesy in 2011 the feelings of ownership can be argued to be particularly important. The public had journeyed with Little Mix from being created on X Factor® (as each band member auditioned as a solo artist) through their auditions as a group, to the judges houses and finally voting for them to win. Social media accounts were created as part of their existence and platforms were regularly updated with news about their journey; this all added to establish a sense of ownership of the band’s successes (e.g., “if we don’t vote for them, they will be sent home this week”)…and the public developed a need to be connected to them 24-7, expected immediate responses to and likes of comments/tweets, feeling let down if responses are not quick enough, the activity of favourites were compared to fellow band members and the “who is your favourite?” question was raised (mine, btw was always Jese!). A comparator that has always made between females (and is now on the rise for males too) is about idealised (and outdated) looks, body shape/size…for example: too thin, too fat, too small, too big, too short, too tall, too White, too Black, too flat chested, too busty.

Anything that allows comparison (so basically anything at all), that favouritism of one person over another that then offers the opportunity for trolls to make their first insinuations and drip-feeding of poison onto the platform… someone responds to them… and it feeds their need to add more negativity, and so it begins…cyberbullies then see an opportunity to really dig in with some nastiness…again, by responding, their negativity and hatefulness grows… they positively thrive on the defence of their chosen target! They don’t care what you think of them, you don’t know who they are…they could be anyone for all you know! … and there is that anonymity again!

So, what, if anything can be done? What can targets of trolls and cyberbullies do? How can they protect themselves from experiencing the psychological harm that comes from persistent pervasive drip-feeding of poison about their looks, their body shape, their personality, their talents, or other personal attribute aimed at bringing about the maximum hurt?

Well take a leaf out of Jesy’s book…take back control

I have cobbled together some loose ideas that might help you work through the process of taking back control below, these are simply my thoughts about what you can do, but if they help then that is only a good thing:

1.     Make it known that you are coming off of social media and do so straight away. You do not have to justify the decision, and do not wait around for the bullies to respond…just close your accounts.

2.     Now identify what is causing you the most upset. Is it the words? are they tapping into your own insecurities? or is it the intention behind their words that is most upsetting? is it something else? …etc. If you don’t know, speak to close others (e.g., family and friends) and ask for their view.

3.     Once identified, focus on what impact experiencing the cyberbullying and trolling is having on your mental health…and be honest with yourself…and speak to close others (e.g., family and friends) about how they feel it is impacting you, remember that they see you from the outside, from your behaviour and responding to them…not from the inside (as you do!). Don’t feel judged or guilty, it is simply about identifying what it is that you

4.     Next, address the immediate issue about your mental health. If it is having a detrimental effect on your day-to-day life speak to your GP, take someone with you if you feel able to; having a second “voice” can often be helpful to identify issues that you might forget about, or that you haven’t identified; your GP needs as much information as possible to help you properly. If you are not impacted on a day-to-day basis, and/or once your mental health is on a stable footing, ask yourself whether you feel able to tackle this without professional help, or whether you should undertake some counselling? or whether you are willing to work with close others (family and friends)?  and importantly are your close others able to (although they may desperately want to) support you properly? If no to the latter, seek out a counsellor or seek advice online or over the phone from one of the many mental health charities that exist (e.g., Mind, NHS mental health and wellbeing support, young minds) who will signpost you to appropriate support networks.

5.     Recognise that working through the effects of your psychological and emotional trauma is not a quick process. It takes no time at all to knock someone down (for chronic attacks this is exaggerated) but it takes a long time for them to have the confidence to stand up again. Be invested in building up your resilience and confidence.

6.     Surround yourself with people who mean something to you; do not isolate yourself…we are social creatures and need to be with others. If you live alone, join a group and get involved in community activities, if you are religious get involved in your faiths’ community projects … I am sure that your volunteering will be most gratefully received (and I believe even permitted under tier 3 restrictions…but do check!). There are ways that you can be active and be sociable that do not involve going to the pub! Which by the way is totally out for anyone in tier 3 anyway!

7.     Live your life free from the chains of those who brought you down!

Finally, always remember that you are you…and only you can be you…it is not for others to tell you who you are, and anyone who wants to do so is simply not worth your concern. Be stronger than them and remove yourself from the equation…take you back from them…and always have the lyrics from Little Mix themselves in 2017:

“Who got the power? I got the, I got the power I got the, I got the power I got the, I got the power Hold up!”

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: James Abrahart / Camille Purcell / Dano Omelio

Power lyrics © Bmg Gold Songs, 360 Music, Artist Publishing Group East, Robopop Musik, Sony/atv Music Publishing Allegro (uk), Jayded Ink Publishing

[dailyaudiobible]

09/04/2020 DAB Transcript

Ecclesiastes 7:1-9:18, 2 Corinthians 7:8-16, Psalms 48:1-14, Proverbs 22:17-19

Today is the 4th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is great to be here with you today. I can’t believe it's September already. Truly, for a year that felt like it was going to drag on or is dragging on forever, it’s like…we’re in September already. It's…it's crazy but we’re moving into it, we’re getting settled into it and we have the Bible to escort us through the gates of every single day and week and month. And right now, the Bible is leading us to the book of Ecclesiastes, which is…yeah…the exploration of the meaninglessness of whatever we might pursue in life even if we get it all but don't acknowledge God and it. So, let's dive in. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Ecclesiastes 7, 8, and 9 today.

Commentary:

Okay. Let's talk about sorrow for a minute. One of our favorite things to talk about talk about, right? Like let’s talk about it all the time, every day. No…sorrow…sorrow what does that bring up in you? Like what…what does that word evoke? I guess we could say sorrow in many ways is some of the things that we’re seeing in the book of Ecclesiastes. Sorrow is attached to a lot of things like regret or grieving or…or whatever, pain, suffering. Do you ever think though sorrow is a good thing? Like normally we don’t ever think that sorrow is a good thing even though sorrow is kind of a baseline. Like it is at the bed rock of things. Like when we are experiencing sorrow, we certainly may have erratic emotions, but sorrow exposes what's really going on. And sorrow is something that the apostle Paul is talking about today in second Corinthians and we just never think about embracing sorrow because we see it as a bad thing. And, so, we’re like, “I only want good things in my life and sorrow isn't one of them” even though sorrow can bring us back into goodness. So, I gotta confess. Like I don't…I just don't ever wake up…I may wake up in the morning feeling sorrow but I don’t ever wake up in the morning feeling great and thinking, “yeah…let me get my coffee so I can just…I want to…I want to see how quickly I can get into sorrow.” Like nobody does. And we wouldn't be able to say that the apostle Paul never experienced sorrow because we've…we’re spending time in his letters, we read of his journeys in the book of Acts. Like this guy experienced suffering and sorrow all over the place, not just externally like from opposition to the message but also internally when there's conflict in the churches and he’s just trying to hold things together and he’s experiencing sorrow because of the way that people are accusing him of something or there’s just not getting along or they’re straying from the message. So, we would have to say the apostle Paul experienced plenty of sorrow. But Paul in his mindset doesn't have sorrow as an only bad sensation. So, let me quote Paul from second Corinthians today. “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” Okay. So, Paul is saying there is a godly sorrow. We might call that at a…a sensation of conviction, the sensation that we get when we know we have stepped over the line in some area of our lives willingly. We did this thing. We regret what we have done. We can see perhaps the repercussions that are coming at us like a wave and we can turn into worldly earthly sorrow because of…because of what might or might not happen because of what we've done, but there is a godly sorrow, one that tells us this is not who I am, this is not who I want to be, this is not the way I want to go, this is not the path my life should be taking. To enter into godly sorrow then that should, that awareness should be frustrating and disappointing, should bring us grief, it should feel distressing. Like it should feel like we’re losing something important. When we…when we walk into sin willfully, like clearly, we should experience the weight of the choices that we are making and what is happening because we are stopping in its tracks the work of God in our lives. Like literally, we are halting sanctification. We are pushing stop on the forward progress of being transformed. We are halting it willingly and saying, “right now I'm doing my own thing. Right now I'm going to follow the path of evil in some way. I’m gonna willingly walk into the darkness. I'm gonna willingly walk the pathway that leads to death.” Okay if we’re gonna do that then we are betraying life. That should not feel good. It should not be something that we associate with wholeness or being healthy. It should bring us sorrow because the way Paul puts it, “this kind of godly sorrow leads us away from…from sin, from darkness, from evil and it results in our salvation.” So, if we’re gonna walk away from God in some way, instead of running toward God then…that…we should feel sorrow and that sorrow should lead us to repentance. And repentance is to change, literally to change your mind, like to go in the other direction. It should lead us to repentance. We should feel this separation that we don't ever want to feel again. So, let's enter into that today. We have a no shortage of things to feel sorrow about. But let’s focus our attention and awareness on the Holy Spirit's leading, the things that bring us sorrow because we have walked away from life. Let's feel the weight of that. Let’s think of what Solomon is saying in Ecclesiastes because as sobering is what he is saying is, he’s still saying the truth. We all we all die. That is the ultimate destiny of each one of us. Our faith informs life beyond this one and we believe this, I believe this, but we all die an earthly death. Why would we walk the pathway to death and foolishness and folly? We should feel sorrow when we’re walking that path. We’re wasting time in this brief moment as Solomon kind of puts before face. It's not a lengthy indefinite period of time that we get to be in this human body and have the experience of life on planet Earth. Why waste it in the darkness? So, let’s invite the Holy Spirit into that.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come, well up from within us. We…we have tried to mix light and darkness so much that it's almost like commonplace. And yet there is a way. There is a path that leads to life. It’s narrow, few find it, but we want to be one who does, which means we have to pay attention to the path we are on and where the road is going. And if we know we are walking into darkness, then the path only goes into the darkness and the end of that road is death. We want to walk the road that leads to life. Come Holy Spirit and show us places within that we are willingly bringing sorrow upon ourselves because we are willingly interrupting what You are doing within us. Come Holy Spirit, we open ourselves to You and we meditate upon this as we move through this day. Lead us as we consider. We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #4 Thoughts

 The very, very, very end of Spider-Geddon and...a surprisingly great issue!

Covering this comic is very strange for me because I’m coming at it from two places mentally speaking.

Firstly I’m jumping into the fourth and final tie in issue to an event comic having not read the prior three issues.

Secondly I’m jumping into Spider-Gwen, a series I abandoned long ago, back in volume 2 issue #10 to be precise, which was published over 2 years before this issue was. It also had an entirely different writer/artist team back then.

Frankly I picked this up purely because I knew Mayday and some RYV characters were going to be in it. In that regard the issue was rather pointless, they cameo and do little else.

However I’m actually glad I bothered with the comic all the same. I was expecting this to be fluff and filler at best. An insufferable worshipping of Gwen Stacy, as so many comics (including Spider-Gwen itself) was when Spider-Gwen got big back in 2014-2016.

To my delight that wasn’t the case.

I admit to being rather lost with some plot points such as Gwen having a symbiote (this was brought up in Spider-Geddon #2 but it was unexplained there too) and how exactly Gwen can transverse dimensions.

However the rest of the issue was mostly good. Now I read Secret Wars: Spider-Verse, Web Warriors and Spider-Geddon #0-5 but I didn’t read any other Spider-Gwen or Ghost Spider issues so to me Gwen’s sense of loss over Noir and Spidey-UK felt rather unearned and cheap. It wasn’t that I didn’t think she’s be upset over losing a comrade but the deep sense of loss and words towards little habits within their respective relationships didn’t ring true to me. However that may have come up in issues I didn’t read so I’m willing to be corrected on that.

But based upon my reading Gwen feeling as sad as she did was a bit of a stretch. I also felt the milking of Spidey-UK’s death from a reader point of view was questionable because...did anyone honestly love that character? Spider-Man Noir I can understand, he has a fanbase (and this issue hammered home how asinine a decision it was to kill him back at the start of this event) but Billy Braddock? Who cares really? He was used for some cheap pathos in Web Warriors and that was about it. Now that being said I did love the idea behind him being buried in Lady Spider’s dimension as she was English (although if memory serves that was never confirmed outright, she may have simply lived in 1800s New York). I did wonder where the Hell Lady Spider was throughout this event though.

The addressing of Noir’s death though was much more necessary and as stupid as it was to kill him I do give Marvel credit for having an issue which addresses that. His fans deserved at least that much, particularly I think the Noir/Felicia shippers who are undoubtedly out there. I also very much appreciated how May, MJ and Felicia had different reactions to his death respectively.

Another great thing was that the general addressing of grief, sadness and death in the issue felt respectful. It felt real even though as I said the specifics of Gwen’s relationship with Noir and Spidey-UK didn’t quite ring true. It’s like it would’ve been perfect dialogue and execution if used for another character’s death.  A small detail I especially  liked in this regard was Gwen’s drumming as a coping mechanism. One of my major complaints in Latour’s issues was how Gwen’s hobbies and passions were underused and underdeveloped. She was a drummer but that didn’t factor that much into the stories I read. So to see McGuire embrace that is as welcome as Miles’ artistic talents in ITSV.

Now I admit, those of you who recall my thoughts on Latour’s Spider-Gwen book might be calling me a hypocrite here. Because another of my frequent complaints was how doom and gloom and glum Gwen typically was in that series from the outset, yet here I’m praising that.

I think the distinction is this. Latour came out the gate defining Gwen as grieving and guilt ridden, reeling from a tragedy that happened an undisclosed amount of time ago (but still making with the yuks and gags). Not only was this tonal whiplash but it also was a shitty way to set up a new ongoing series. It began world building for Gwen in media-res of extenuating circumstances and circumstances which were incredibly derivative of Peter Parker.

Where McGuire succeeds in this issue is by having not only a distinctly different tragedy but also the benefit of this occurring both after Gwen’s world has been built up and in the aftermath of a huge event. It’s totally realistic and earned that there would be a mourning for fallen warriors after a war. It’d be disrespectful for that not to be the case; in fact it’s kind of disrespectful that that mourning happens in a tie-in issue not the main book!

By having this issue actually deal with the aftermath it re-contextualizes the prior issues of the event. Spider-Geddon as a whole was definitely a bloated poorly written inconsistent mess. But this issue as a coda treats it with the weight the main book never had. There is an emotional realism to the story even though we are dealing with something as wacky as inter-dimensional travel and totem vampires.

This emotional realism is pulled off so well you even feel a little something for Karn’s death, you even feel bad he died alone and so violently even though again, no one is a fan of that character. No one gives a shit about him.

Part of this realism comes from McGuire from this one issue apparently being an inherently better writer than Latour ever was, at least for Spider-Gwen. Latour in all this works I’ve read emphasises style, and wants you to ‘watch’ the story unfold rather than feel like you are right there with the characters. You can ‘see’ Spider-gwen is upset but McGuire takes you inside her head and writes her grief from the inside out. Latour might’ve used internal narration but he rarely pulled this off, probably because he was too busy making a clown show on the side with stupid ass Spider-Ham cameos, wacky humour about the Bodega Bandit or building up Evil Daredevil instead of you know, the ACTUAL main character.

His Spider-Gwen work felt a lot like watching things sort of just happened rather than experiencing things unfolding like in this issue.

What further enhances this story is the deliberate or accidental metatext behind the story. No I am not talking about how Stan Lee had recently died when the issue came out, though that did make me tear up thinking about it.

Gwen has been rebranded Ghost Spider (though her recap page doesn’t quite admit that weirdly) and this is an issue about Gwen dealing with ghosts, dealing with death, spreading the grim news as a reluctant messenger of death. That angle just works in this issue and if embraced would work brilliantly as a new element to the character to latch onto. In no small part because, as the issue itself acknowledges, Gwen Stacy’s legacy is inherently linked to death.

That might be admittedly a radical departure from the punk rock youth vibe the series began with, but not only was that rather squandered by Latour (with bullshit like Hipster Electro and Hipster Kraven the Hunter, go fuck yourself seriously!) but at the end of the day that vibe is perhaps rather...shallow...for an ongoing character...??????

Other elements of the issue I liked was the artwork. It’s not much like what Rodriguez was going, which was I admit very distinct and gave Spider-Gwen’s series a unique identity. But this art is still lovely and works very well for the subject matter. What is particularly nice was the different period outfits Gwen adopted as she made her travels through the multiverse. Also, though this isn’t strictly ‘art’ per se, the word balloons at Karn’s funeral have a cool moment where everyone speaks a salute to Karn and the combined word balloons look like a spider. That was just a cool touch.

My final note is that McGuire has one of the best Peter Parker moments I’ve seen in a long time, and considering the quality of Spencer’s run that is not damning with faint praise (as it would’ve been just over a year ago). In the scene Spider-Gwen and 616 Peter discuss Gwen needing some time off and Gwen asks if that is selfish. On the one hand this is a little bit derivative of Peter Parker, King of Guilt and Responsibility. On the other hand I guess most heroes would ask this of themselves. Peter Parker surprisingly gives a very mature answer.

Now this answer is very much in character and logical for Peter, but it’s also something too often writers neglect in favour of writing Peter in a repetitive manner that renders him a caricature. Peter acknowledges it is selfish but that that is not wrong, He says the world will always need saving but the heroes get to pick their battles and have to sometimes rest, that indeed they deserve it.

Though a mere moment in a story not about him McGuire writes a Peter Parker who truly feels like a mature adult, that feels like the Peter who is truly the sum of his experiences.

Were this teenage or college aged Peter he wouldn’t have been likely to say that. If it was friggin Slott’s Peter Parker definitely not (even though he’d have still gone to play with Miles in the park rather than do his actual job). But a Peter Parker who’s insanely experienced and knows his limits? Yes absolutely he’d know he’s entitled to down time and more importantly needs it. It’s demonstrative of how guilt is present in his character and yet is not the defining trait. Responsibility is, and there is a responsibility to himself. Spidey-UK even echoes such a sentiment earlier in the story.

So with all that said I must admit this issue was a tremendous triumph from where I’m standing, I’d recommend you read it and would go so far as to call it the best issue of Spider-Gwen I’ve ever read sans her debut.

Does it change my feelings for Spider-Geddon as a whole?

No, it still sucked and was still pointless beyond resurrecting MC2 Peter (which in my book makes it worth it, sorry Spidey Noir fans, I’m sure he’ll be back eventually) but this last issue took it out on an unquestionable high note.

[forbesblog1]

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Think about this: you come across two providers providing the exact expert services one has 250 Fb likes, the other forty three - which 1 would you opt for? So irrespective of irrespective of whether you are an on the web retailer, an affiliate marketer, give a support such as tuition, or run a information site, social media can aid you establish your enterprise on the internet. Google estimates that by 2015, Uk consumers will have purchased £40bn of products and providers online. Preferred Social Media Web sites And Their Employs Receiving to get grips with the nuances of social media's job in advertising and marketing your company can induce much more than its truthful share of headaches. Right here is a list of the most well-liked social media sites and their utilizes: Fb is predominately for sharing. This can be merchandise, posts, or products and services. In a nutshell, it is really for sharing your articles with as several individuals as probable. Twitter is about sharing information on any subject matter. You should not permit the word information make you come to feel it does not utilize for goods. New solution launches, new stock ready to be offered - Twitter is good for all of this. Google+ is in portion a combination of the two and has become essential for lookup motor optimization if nothing else. Blogging is a good way to impart news and abilities to your readership, purchaser and client foundation, or followers. It delivers a excellent way to draw in guests on your site by using search engines. YouTube is about showcasing video clips to a vast audience. It is remaining utilised by businesses all the time to market products and solutions and products and services. As YouTube is owned by Google, movies tend to attribute prominently on lookup engine outcomes. You can also utilise the YouTube advertisements to make a secondary cash flow stream. Pinterest and other bookmarking web sites are really great at showcasing visible items. If your small business is providing a little something on the web, albeit a item or assistance, assure you are putting up on Pinterest and as lots of bookmarking internet sites you can discover. Social Media And Lookup Engine Optimization (Seo) Fantastic positioning on search engines is about exceptional high-quality information that is properly shared and well joined to from other internet sites. By sharing your written content on social sites, the much more chance there is of people today liking it on Facebook, retweeting on Twitter, or sharing the pin on Pinterest. Back links are significant for great Website positioning and posting your material on social websites delivers a link from the social web page to yours, and in each individual situation this can be targeted to a distinct web web page. By website web site I suggest a certain item, service, or post. This also guarantees Google indexes the web page. That is to say, it provides it to its databases, making certain it can be found on research engines. Finding The Finest Social Media Web pages For Your Business enterprise To come across the very best social websites suited to your company, feel about what your organization is trying to do. If your company sells products or solutions, then use social internet sites that showcase photos and movies to sell the item. YouTube, Pinterest, Delightful and Instagram are all seriously great for showcasing products. If you are in the advertising sport, make films of your items, choose fantastic expert pics and get them on these websites, and be certain you connection the shots and video clips immediately to the information on your site. If you provide on eBay or an affiliate vendor, check out to website link right to the product web site in which a opportunity consumer can get it. Also, set the goods on your Facebook site, Google+ page, and Twitter. For provider providers, a marginally diverse spin on social media advertising is necessary as, far more typically than not, a services service provider will sit in the center of visible social media, and textual content-based social internet sites. This also applies to affiliate marketers.   If you have any issues pertaining to wherever and how to use scott levy, you can get hold of us at our web-page. If you can, stand for your expert services with a picture or icon, and publish the picture or icon on the visible sites. Use films to showcase your providers - if you can get testimonies from clientele, well, which is gold dust. Publish frequently on your weblog and tweet the content, collectively with insights into the field. This engagement will support develop trust with your existing customers, showcase your expertise, and enable you to be located by folks wishing to develop into new clientele.  

[mybodyliberation]

AD | Gifted Lush Spa Review

Now guys, grab a cup of tea and a fuzzy blanket and settle in because I'm about to tell you a full tale!

You will remember a while ago when Lush very controversially decided to stop engaging in their social media platforms in the conventional way that a lot of brands do now. They wanted a clear transition from relying on social media to interact with their customers into something more personable. Though I understand why some customers thought this didn't make sense as so much is done digitally now, I love that they were seeking to strip things back to basics and not rely on way of promoting and interacting with customers. 

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the Lush Spa, which is the only one of its kind up here in Scotland, and as well as look at the new products within the store itself, I was able to experience one of their multitude of spa treatments. 

On asking for the recommendation because I simply couldn't pick from all of the interesting options, it was suggested I try "The Sound Bath", which is advertised as a treatment to retune the mind and body with ear candling and facial massage. 

Now sometimes I love to be surprised and so I made sure I didn't look it up before then. I wanted to come in with no expectations or previous knowledge and just experience the process. 

The second I stepped into the store I felt welcomed by not only the staff but all the aromas in the air. I mean come on we've all been in Lush and basically wanted to pick up a bath bomb and start chomping on it, but seriously with all the Christmas smells in the air I was seconds away from eating at least three Santa shaped items. 

One of the most interesting products I spotted was their R&B hair moisturizer, a thick leave in designed specifically for curly and textured hair to restore the hairs natural state, especially with this change of weather which has mine drying out constantly. It's not many UK based cosmetics companies that would try and design products with textured hair in mind and so I was already intrigued. 

I was soon greeted by the lovely Rachel who was going to be facilitating my treatment. She gave me such a warm welcome and took me straight downstairs to the spa space. Unfortunately as far as I know there is no accessibility for those who need access in order to get down into the spa, which I think is a shame, but I recognize comes  from the kind of building the store is located in. Perhaps they can begin thinking about how to rectify this so that in the future all customers are able to access the spa. 

The spa is purposefully set up like a little country kitchen. Think of recycled wood tables and chairs, mason jars full of products, treats and teas. Everything about the space feels deliberate and everything serves a purpose in creating an environment and space that feels almost as if you have escaped into a children's storybook. 

On being taken down into the space Rachel encouraged me to take a seat while she hung up my coat and before we began going through the normal formalities of filling in forms but also she could further explain the treatment.

Now I don't know about ya'll but a facial I have had, but an ear candling? Excuse me, what? Yet I was feeling adventurous and ready to try it once Rachel explained that we would be using something that essentially looked like a thick straw, made out of materials like cotton that would be placed in my ear and set alight in order to encourage my ears natural vibrations which in turn is an opportunity to open up the ears.

She explained that alongside the treatment there would also be an entire soundscape, in which the treatment was choreographed to. Music for the Lush Spa treatments are created by the Fresh Hand Made Collective and ranges from instrumental, to sounds you would hear in the country side, to full coral singing. 

It was going to be an activation of all of my senses, sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Full sensory immersion in order to create a feeling of relaxation, perspective and openness to what my body might be telling me.

You see the treatments aren't just about making your body feel good, but are about encouraging you to check in on yourself and honour what your mind, body, soul and spirit are trying to address within you.

The last few weeks this has very much been my personal journey and so it feels like this treatment came at the exact right time because it was a whole 60 minutes of allowing that process to be facilitated in a way that wasn't necessarily a traditional option for me

Before the treatment started I was told I had a gift, and as I looked up, Rachel had a wooden box that had the most aromatic smells coming from it. When I got over my utter amazement, I opened up to find a bottle saying drink me, filled with cooling apple flavoured water and a small piece of chocolate saying eat me, made from raw cocoa and coconut. In that moment I felt my body being reminded of the sweetness of life and the gift that was this opportunity to align with myself.

After quickly nipping to the fully kitted out toilet and shower room, fawning over the products there for customers to try, I got ready to experience the treatment.

Rachel encouraged me strip down to whatever level of nakedness felt comfortable for me, and ya'll please I long ago stripped any reservations and as soon nude, under the fuzzy blanket, inhaling the feminine and masculine energy filled incense she had just released into the room and ringing the bell for her to come back in! 

Before I got undressed Rachel did explain to me some of the tools she would be using during the process including two types of tuning forks which on massaging the particular area of my face or chest, she would then use the forks to vibrate against me in order for the frequencies to encourage natural alignment of my internal energies. 

As soon as I heard the sound of birds and dripping water, and Rachel telling me to let my thoughts slip away, I instantly relaxed felt my body begin to drop some of the usual tensions I carry in my shoulders, hips and legs. 

The smell of the oils Rachel was using floated me away and I honestly what felt like the best kind of space and time travel took me through the whole process from facial, to hot and cold stone massaging of the temples and jaws and ears, to the actual ear candling which was an interesting and unique experience for each ear. 

There is so much about frequency and sound that is perfect for any of us, which is all of us, on a healing journey in life, and this treatment is such a wonderful opportunity to gift yourself a moment to see what the physical manifestation of this is. I have no doubt that each persons emotional state would be different, but I experienced true joy, knowing that in the past it probably would have been closer to sobs at the release of tension and the acknowledgement of what frequency my body was vibrating on, and knowing that both reactions are valid is a testament to the growth you can have in a 60 minute treatment.

It is not just a treatment but is an experience and I honestly feel this would be such a wonderful gift for anyone in your life that might be going through a super transitional period of time. 

Now The Sound Bath retails at £80  but there are treatments for as low as £40 and some as high as £300, so depending on the treatment you are looking for and how small or big your budget is you have some options, but know its about investing an experience as well as a treatment.

If you are looking for a basic massage, I would suggest going to a more traditional spa, but Lush are offering an elevated experience that challenges your senses and the aspects of your body as well as your mind. 

Honestly I can't wait to go back and I already know what I want for Christmas!

  

[localbizlift]

Zuckerberg says breaking up Facebook “isn’t going to help”

With the look of someone betrayed, Facebook’s CEO has fired back at co-founder Chris Hughes and his brutal NYT op-ed calling for regulators to split up Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. “When I read what he wrote, my main reaction was that what he’s proposing that we do isn’t going to do anything to help solve those issues. So I think that if what you care about is democracy and elections, then you want a company like us to be able to invest billions of dollars per year like we are in building up really advanced tools to fight election interference” Zuckerberg told France Info while in Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Zuckerberg’s argument boils down to the idea that Facebook’s specific problems with privacy, safety, misinformation, and speech won’t be directly addressed by breaking up the company, and instead would actually hinder its efforts to safeguard its social networks. The Facebook family of apps would theoretically have fewer economies of scale when investing in safety technology like artificial intelligence to spot bots spreading voter suppression content.

Facebook’s co-founders (from left): Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Mark Zuckerberg

Hughes claims that “Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American” and that Facebook’s rampant acquisitions and copying have made it so dominant that it deters competition. The call echoes other early execs like Facebook’s first president Sean Parker and growth chief Chamath Palihapitiya who’ve raised alarms about how the social network they built impacts society.

But Zuckerberg argues that Facebook’s size benefits the public. “Our budget for safety this year is bigger than the whole revenue of our company was when we went public earlier this decade. A lot of that is because we’ve been able to build a successful business that can now support that. You know, we invest more in safety than anyone in social media” Zuckerberg told journalist Laurent Delahousse.

The Facebook CEO’s comments were largely missed by the media, in part because the TV interview was heavily dubbed into French with no transcript. But written out, his quotes offer a window into how deeply Zuckerberg dismisses Hughes’ claims. “Well [Hughes] was talking about a very specific idea of breaking up the company to solve some of the social issues that we face” Zuckerberg says before trying to decouple solutions from anti-trust regulation. “The way that I look at this is, there are real issues. There are real issue around harmful content and finding the right balance between expression and safety, for preventing election interference, on privacy.”

Claiming that a breakup “isn’t going to do anything to help” is a more unequivocal refutation of Hughes’ claim than that of Facebook VP of communications and former UK deputy Prime Minster Nick Clegg . He wrote in his own NYT op-ed today that “what matters is not size but rather the rights and interests of consumers, and our accountability to the governments and legislators who oversee commerce and communications . . . Big in itself isn’t bad. Success should not be penalized.”

Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes

Something certainly must be done to protect consumers. Perhaps that’s a break up of Facebook. At the least, banning it from acquiring more social networks of sufficient scale so it couldn’t snatch another Instagram from its crib would be an expedient and attainable remedy.

But the sharpest point of Hughes’ op-ed was how he identified that users are trapped on Facebook. “Competition alone wouldn’t necessarily spur privacy protection — regulation is required to ensure accountability — but Facebook’s lock on the market guarantees that users can’t protest by moving to alternative platforms” he writes. After Cambridge Analytica “people did not leave the company’s platforms en masse. After all, where would they go?”

That’s why given critics’ call for competition and Zuckerberg’s own support for interoperability, a core tenet of regulation must be making it easier for users to switch from Facebook to another social network. As I’ll explore in an upcoming piece, until users can easily bring their friend connections or ‘social graph’ somewhere else, there’s little to compel Facebook to treat them better.

[imagitory]

Readers of Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce,

I come to you needing some assistance.

Recently I stumbled upon a post here on Tumblr stating that the user had found one of my chapters, as well as the comments underneath, to be full of “vicious, intense, casual racism.” I am not above constructive criticism (I actually appreciate it), and I was deeply troubled by the thought that I’d hurt somebody with anything I had written. Considering it was a blog post and not a review, I sent the user a message via Tumblr chat. I figured talking the matter over personally and privately would allow me to take in the person’s point of view, hopefully reassure them of my intent, and try to mend what had been hurt. The next day I received a link to the user’s new blog outside of Tumblr with a public response to my private message. Although I was a bit disheartened that we could not have a private discussion rather than a debate, I still tried to address the concerns. You can read the entire exchange if you wish here.

I do not write this blog post, my readers, to ask you to defend my honor, or even to take my side. What I aim for is understanding, for if I’ve truly written something offensive, I need to understand the issue at hand. I’m well aware that I have my own biases – as everyone does – but I have tried very hard to be sensitive about cultures that are not mine, and in this situation I feel like there’s a piece missing from my understanding.

The user, zenolalia / @fangasmagorical, in part, said this:

While I do think that it’s a bit less-than-ideal to present a child trying to act within the dietary restrictions of her heavily, heavily maligned religious and racial minority as “cheating,” my issue was very much not with the fact that the characters within the story (such as Dumbledore) treated her as cheating. In fact, I think that’s a very realistic thing for them to do. Rather, that at that point in the story there was not indication in the narrative itself that this treatment was unfair. There was a strong implication that her disqualification was legitimate and deserved. The excuse given is that she should have simply asked for an exception to be made. But, that’s a completely unrealistic expectation to present on a child of color who has, especially in the UK in the 90s, definitely been subjected to extensive racism surrounding her religion. Indeed, canonical to the books, the exclusive celebration of Christian holidays in a school that pre-dates the wide spread adoption of Christianity in the isles is, itself, strong evidence that she would have experienced a lot of this racism. So, of course, her not asking for an exception is totally within reason and a strong character choice. Just like having the judges treat her as a cheat is also a strong and reasonable character choice.

(…)

The thing that burns me the most is, it would be a very, very easy fix to make. A single line tucked somewhere in the narration that indicates that although the judgement is reasonable (in that there are reasons for it), it is not necessarily just, would be enough. Anything that indicates that the racism of the scene is known.

From what I understand, they wish that I had (to borrow a phrase) called a spade a spade and used narrative description to confirm that Arjuna was the victim of racism. The concern I have is this – as I said in my comments, I deliberately wanted to write a world where people of color are not treated like maligned minorities, and the rules of prejudice are different among witches and wizards than they are among us. Rather than racism, the main source of prejudice – like in the books – is blood purity. There are also touches of prejudice against different species like house elves and LGBT+ prejudice because their life style wouldn’t jive with the Death Eaters’ image of a Pureblood family with seven kids, but there’s practically no racism among witches and wizards. Even in J.K.’s flawed portrayal, we don’t get much evidence of racism – Lee Jordan, Dean Thomas, Cho Chang, and the Patils aren’t treated differently than their classmates for their race…Blaise Zabini is even one of those promoting prejudice against Muggle-borns. Perhaps someone like Bridget (or even Hermione, if you like headcanoning her as black like I do), who grew up among Muggles, would know the prejudices of our world as we do, but Arjuna was raised in an entirely magical household, in a world where the President of the MACUSA in the 30′s and the British Minister of Magic in the 80′s were both black women. And considering I purposefully wanted to write a world without institutional racism (at least in regards to race: I have referred to such a prejudice against Muggle-borns), I’m afraid I don’t see what would be gained from saying that the judges – when they disqualified Arjuna for cheating – were targeting her for her religion. At one point the idea that Arjuna wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough to come forward came up, but I don’t know of anything I’ve written that would’ve signaled that. She had been the best of the chefs and just about everyone had considered her more than capable of winning the competition – her decision process came down more to her pride making it hard for her to ask for help. I can’t help but think of media like Avatar: The Last Airbender and the new Star Wars films, where there are characters of color but there are different rules about how those cultures interact with each other. Finn is a black Stormtrooper, but the only prejudice he experiences in his universe is for being a Stormtrooper, not for his race. Katara, Sokka, and the Southern Water Tribe are treated badly by the Fire Nation, but it’s not because of their race – it’s because they’re a territory the imperialistic Fire Nation is exerting control over. Even when there are parallels to the real world, those fictional worlds still have their own rules.

Now of course, some real world parallels are relevant enough that they could still be offensive even if the rules are different from our world. J.K. got a lot of blow-back for saying every witch and wizard, including Native Americans, would attend Ilvermorny, which is a bit insensitive when Native Americans have a history of being forced to attend American schools far from home. Gay characters are so often martyred without proper development or as soon as they find romantic happiness that people understandably get upset when one is written that way. Jewish and gay coding on villains is still something people talk about. If this is an issue of that – as in many Hindu people or even Indian people experience discrimination specifically for what they eat – then I want to learn more about it and address that. My best experience with something like this are Jewish people eating things that are kosher or, in a looser example, Morman Elders, when they’re on missions, being unable to be inside a home without another male being present – because not everyone that follows a religion will necessarily follow every code to the letter and not everyone will be thoroughly enlightened about every religion’s code, sometimes one must bridge the gap. (Particularly when in this situation, the judges would’ve had no reason to know about Arjuna’s dietary restrictions – the only one who’d known her for any length of time was Dumbledore, and I can’t see him memorizing every student’s eating patterns when the Hogwarts house elves are responsible for every meal.) And as much as some cultures may feel pressured not to speak up on certain things, it doesn’t make cheating the right or moral choice, and in this situation that wasn’t even an issue at play.

I wrote this to explain my position so that hopefully I can get the feedback needed to approach this issue. If any of you were likewise troubled by what I wrote or have any other insight, please reply or whatever to this post, if you’d like. And if anything I’ve written has upset you, then you can always message me here on Tumblr, start up a Tumblr chat, or even just leave a review on my story. I will always read what you’ve said and I will not get angry. Even when I end up disagreeing, I always try to take in every bit of feedback I receive and try to use it to become a better writer, and I‘ve been so grateful for the constructive criticism I have received over the last year amongst the praise. At one point early on, I cited Ayer’s Rock as the site of the Australian Ministry of Magic in a montage scene talking about world travel. Not long later I received a review from an Australian fan explaining to me the history of Uhuru and why my artistic choice, made in the heat of the moment while I was writing three chapters in a week, was insensitive and gave me a suggestion on a location I could use instead, the Nullarbor Plain. I immediately changed it, not only because I realized how much I should have taken my time and done my homework, but because her idea ended up being so much better than my original concept. I later applied the lesson I’d learned when I had to do research for a character with autism, and I took almost an entire month researching American and Native American history before writing about the MACUSA and introducing a new character who was a half-Native American wizard. I’m not above improvement or reproach, and everything I learn I try to integrate into who I am. But I cannot learn if I don’t understand.

This is undoubtedly an emotionally charged issue and I truly don’t want to create controversy or hurt anyone. If this were a story set in our Muggle world, I would do everything I possibly could to address the racism, sexism, and homophobia that infects our world, and even in this fictional universe I try to slip in plenty of commentary wherever I can. I know we’ll all have our own opinions on the matter, but if any of you have been kind enough to read all of this and have anything to add, I would appreciate it. I only aim for improvement, both for myself and for my writing, and I hope that even if I have disappointed any of you with my sentiment, you at least feel my sincerity in that.

Thank you.